A request came in from a group that uses the church auditorium for tech support. They wanted to bring in a guest using the magic of Zoom. Unfortunately we ended up rejecting the request not due to a lack of technical firepower but rather due to a lack of available crew to supervise the connection and its display.

When we were debating things during practice Saturday it came out how Microsoft Teams would serve our needs far better than Zoom ever could. Zoom simply does not have the level of control and ease of access to controls that Teams has. There is a reason that the major media outlets in Cleveland often use Teams in lieu of Zoom for remote guests as they have an easier time getting higher quality footage.

Is there a viable open source competitor? More than likely Nextcloud Talk may be usable. The problem is that I need to find a demo to play with. Right now Teams is the most accessible turnkey solution. If I’m missing something as to easily using Nextcloud Talk then I’ll need to look harder.

There are far fewer contenders in the field of videoconferencing than I would like.